NOAA satellite imagery can also be accessed directly from www.goes.noaa.gov. Choose infrared, and animation (movie cam icon) for most detailed info.

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Www.goes.noaa.gov sector satellite images are superb for showing you approaching weather several days out.

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Going canoeing, or on hikes that require river fords? Go to www.waterdata.usgs.gov for river flow information, searchable by state and time frame.

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Once you've navigated the www.waterdata.usgs.gov site, you'll get detailed flow graphs, like this one for the Escalante River in southern Utah - approaching kayak level, but tough to ford.

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How much light will you get per day at your destination? Find sunrise/sunset, moonrise/moonset, and moon phases, all for specific locations, by going to aa.usno.navy.mil/data/.

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Googling up your State Department of Transportation can reveal good data too. (Note: States vary.) In the upper right you see a real-time Utah Commuterlink traffic camera for the highway across Boulder Mtn in southern Utah - showing clear, sunny skies.

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Here Utah Commuterlink shows current and graphed temperatures, and current wind speed, for their weather station at 9,000 ft on Boulder Mountain - valuable info for spring, fall or winter.